Grass Lake Caps Thrilling Rise with 1st Finals Title
By
Jason Schmitt
Special for MHSAA.com
April 9, 2021
EAST LANSING — Though it may very well look like a fun play on words, Grass Lake girls basketball coach Andrea Cabana has established quite a culture in the small town located just east of Jackson.
And it’s really beginning to pay off.
“It’s a grass-root, fundamental approach to changing the overall culture of the program,” she said. “We’re very in-tune to the younger kids in the Junior Warriors (program), throughout the middle school to JV and varsity. It’s a full program effort to keep everyone involved.”
On Friday, she and her Grass Lake team took another step in keeping everyone involved, capturing the school’s first girls basketball state championship. The Warriors overcame an early seven-point deficit and held off a late charge by Kent City for a 52-50 victory in the Division 3 Final at the Breslin Center.
Trailing by 10 points with just more than five minutes remaining in the game, Kent City went on a 10-2 run to nearly dissolve Grass Lake’s lead. Seniors Kenzie Bowers and Jenna Harrison hit back-to-back 3-pointers to get their team within four points at 46-40. After a Lauren Pongracz layup put it back to a six-point advantage for the Warriors, Harrison hit another 3 and Bowers hit one of two free throws to make it a 46-44 game, in favor of Grass Lake.
The two teams would trade baskets before Grass Lake junior Lexus Bargesser hit a pair of free throws with 35 seconds remaining to give her team a four-point lead. She added two more with 10 seconds left to essentially seal the victory for her team.
“I feel so proud of our team and how we pulled through and didn’t let the pressure get to us,” Bargesser said. “Truly, this is the best thing that any basketball player could imagine happening to them. To be able to go and say you won a state championship is truly such a blessing.”
Kent City entered the game unbeaten at 21-0 and jumped out to early leads of 16-9 and 21-17 thanks in part to its 3-point shooting. The Eagles shot nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc, hitting 11 of their 28 attempts.
They also played well defensively early on, keeping Grass Lake’s two leading scorers, Bargesser and Abrie Cabana, in check.
“The girls executed the game plan absolutely perfectly,” Kent City head coach Scott Carlson said. ”We wanted to take away (Bargesser) and (Cabana) and we did that in the first quarter, the first half really. But they had some players hit some shots that we were going to make them shoot.”
Bargesser finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Cabana had 10 points to go along with her five rebounds. Junior Gabrielle Lutchka hit four 3-pointers and scored all 14 of her points in the first half.
Harrison led Kent City with 16 points, while Bowers chipped in 13.
“We had a great season,” Carlson said. “These girls played absolutely fantastic. They overcame a lot and worked their tails off all offseason on their own when we couldn’t get together. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
For Grass Lake, the championship is a culmination of five years of growth in the program, a program which Coach Cabana took over five years ago. The Warriors faced one of the toughest schedules in the state this season, which helped prepare them for Friday.
“We intentionally had a very tough schedule this year,” said the coach, who now has a 95-18 record in five years with the program. “Our philosophy is we want to see the best. We want to see how good we are. We want to be pushed to our limits. Teams like that will expose every weakness that you have. So we were able to work on the things that needed to be adjusted before big games like this.”
Grass Lake also captured its first Regional title this year, having fallen just short a couple of times under Cabana.
“Our program has definitely been on the rise the past couple of years,” Lutchka said. “We had a team make it to the Regional Final and (it) ended up not winning, so we’ve been trying to get past that point. Every year, we’ve gotten better and better and better.”
And this year, the Warriors reached the basketball summit.
“It’s huge for the girls within the program, something to build on and keep focusing on,” Cabana said. “It’s huge for the district. We’ve never won a basketball state championship at Grass Lake, and I think it’s huge for the community. We’ve had people who graduated a long time ago show up and give us their support. The amount of people who have reached out wishing us luck is astronomical. It will (someday) become a basketball town. We’re working on it.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Grass Lake's Lexus Bargesser (1) tries to get a hand on a shot during Saturday's Division 3 Final at Breslin Center. (Middle) Kent City's Lexie Bowers (3) makes her move around the arc with Amber Boomer defending. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Team of the Month: West Bloomfield Girls Basketball
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
April 14, 2022
One of the compelling moments of this season’s Girls Basketball Finals at Michigan State’s Breslin Center came just after the final buzzer of the Division 1 championship game.
As his players rushed each other to celebrate midcourt, West Bloomfield coach Darrin McAllister first leaned forward, hands just above his knees, before moving down into a crouch, head dipped to his chest, obviously breaking down a bit in joy at what his Lakers had just completed.
McCallister had played college football and helped Wayne State’s women’s basketball program to multiple NCAA Sweet 16 appearances as an assistant coach. But what the Lakers did last month – finish reeling off 25 straight wins with their first MHSAA Finals girls basketball championship – made his “Mount Rushmore,” if not much more.
“This is probably at the top,” he said this week, after a month of the experience settling in. “Because I knew the sacrifices that these players made, I knew the sacrifices that the coaches and the parents made, and then for (our players) to speak it into existence that they want to win a state championship, it’s great.”
It was not as easy as the Lakers – the MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” for March – frequently made it appear.
Yes, West Bloomfield’s players said on their first day of practice Nov. 12 that they planned on winning the Division 1 championship. And that seemed like a logical goal for a team that eventually will send at least four players to Division I college programs and had won a league title and finished 10-3 during the COVID-interrupted 2020-21 season.
But the Lakers also entered the preseason having graduated five players from that team and with a young but talented lineup needing to learn how to be cohesive and efficient in their roles. Add in that McAllister got a late start, taking over the program after all of the summer training and majority of preseason prep were done.
West Bloomfield lost its season opener 59-46 to Dexter (which would go on to finish 19-3). But a week later, the Lakers started to show what they could do in coming back from a 19-point deficit to defeat Illinois power Bolingbrook 48-47.
Just before the midpoint of the regular season, McAllister could see things taking shape.
“We had talented players, but they were young. So we kinda started it all over and identified our identity,” he said. “Every had to establish their roles and buy into their roles, so it wasn’t easy. I think for me, it makes me more appreciative and makes me enjoy this experience more than anything else.”
Along the way, West Bloomfield repeated as Oakland Activities Association Red champion. Two weeks before the start of the playoffs, the Lakers also accomplished what for a few seasons had seemed unthinkable to most – hand Detroit Edison a 65-62 loss, the Pioneers’ first to an in-state opponent since 2017-18 and after Edison had defeated West Bloomfield by nine and 28 points the season before.
Perhaps the least surprised were the Lakers, who had started believing they could defeat Edison after the Bolingbrook win. They also believed they could compete with every other team as well – and they would continue impressing with a championship run that included wins over Bloomfield Hills Marian (15-7), Farmington Hills Mercy (18-5), Grosse Pointe North (18-6), Troy (13-12), Rockford (23-3) in the Semifinal and Hartland (25-2) in the championship game.
The pair of wins at Breslin showed what West Bloomfield has transformed into this winter. In defeating the Rams 66-63, the Lakers received double-digit scoring from four players – led by sophomore twins Indya Davis with 24 points and Summer Davis with 16 and six assists – with junior Sydney Hendrix posting a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds and guard Myonna Hooper setting the high-energy tone along with scoring 14 points. At the same time, senior center Zaneiya Batiste didn’t score and shot only twice – but grabbed nine rebounds, nearly the difference in the Lakers’ rebounding edge.
West Bloomfield defeated Hartland 51-42 with Indya Davis and Hendrix both posting double doubles, Summer Davis again dishing six assists, Hooper again energetically chipping in and Batiste again helping out big on the boards. In both games, sophomores Destiny Washington and Kendall Hendrix came off the bench to provide valuable minutes.
“March was the month everything came together,” McAllister said. “At the end of the (championship) game, I shed tears because it was emotional seeing it come together.”
West Bloomfield felt like it was just trying to catch up much of the season due to McAllister’s taking over late. But now, with five of this season’s top seven players coming back next year, it also feels like the Lakers are just getting started.
“Now I’m excited and looking forward to our offseason,” McCallister said. “I can’t wait to get the players in June and start getting workouts in and going to team camps, because I know that’s only going to make us better for the upcoming season.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2021-22
February: Cadillac girls skiing - Read
January: Hartland hockey - Read
December: Midland Dow girls basketball - Read
November: Reese girls volleyball - Read
October: Birmingham Groves boys tennis - Read